Trends in Sanitation Product Sales and Business Sustainability

"This indicator is designed to measure new sales of sanitation products over time - to see if there is a drop-off, plateau, or if sales continue to increase. The indicator also provides an indication of the likely sustainabilty of individual businesses. Ideally the monitoring data would also track the types of sanitation products sold each month A clear boundary should be set around definition of ""sanitation products"" and the fact that the indicator is not tracking profitability measures"

Data should be gathered only from the businesses you have been working with, which are (now) offering a range of sanitation products. At the start of the project, it is important that businesses are aware of the need for this data to be shared with you - it can be commercially sensitive and some businesses may not be willing to share the information. You will need to check this first, before deciding to use this particular indicator.

Recommended survey

Provide each business with the same data collection form; assure businesses that their data will be kept confidentially and will not be shared externally except for reporting purposes when it will be aggregated (annonymously) with data from all the businesses involved in the project. Data should be gathered on a monthly basis; ideally you would want to continue to have this data, even after the end of your project timeframe

Types of sanitation products, whether purchased with cash/credit, whether purchased by a household or institution (i.e. school, health facility, church)